India, Russia decide to remove bottlenecks in pharma ties

Moscow: Russia and India have agreed to remove bottlenecks in their cooperation in the field of pharmaceuticals, including clinical trials of new drugs, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Friday.

“We have decided to send officials from both sides to sit on table either in New Delhi or Moscow to remove the bottlenecks, including clinical trials of new drugs,” Azad told the Indian media after meeting his Russian counterpart Tatiana Golikova.

He is here on a four-day visit to attend the First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Noncommunicable Disease Control organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“We are well represented in the Russian pharma market and our companies suffer from the procedural delays in registration of new drugs,” Azad said.

He did not rule out that officials from the two countries could agree on mutual recognition of clinical trials, although it was a very technical, scientific issue.